


lilac wine is sweet and heady

by Bogbody



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), Corvo Bianco (The Witcher), F/M, One Shot, Post-Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), Retirement, Short & Sweet, geralt retires but he still remembers, mentions of the blood and wine dlc plot, references to the books and the tv show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24291898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bogbody/pseuds/Bogbody
Summary: Geralt has finally rested his swords
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 10
Kudos: 62





	lilac wine is sweet and heady

**Author's Note:**

> thnx to everyone in the discord for encouraging me to post this

The sun is heavy on Corvo Bianco; the sky is almost too blue to be true and there she lies, naked as the day she was born, beneath the roses and lilacs. She looks like the statue of Lilvani that towers over the abandoned temple in Velen, whole and gorgeous, not a hair out of place. Well, it's not as if Geralt would notice. She looked the same to him when she was knees deep in mud in Skellige, when she stood nude and bloody above him in Rinde, in his amnesiac dreams of her riding a black horse into the night, in his last fading thoughts when her hands were reaching for him, covered in his blood, mouthing useless spells and he was so cold-

He is warm now; he hasn't felt cold in a while. Leaving Kaer Morhen for the last time hurt, but it would have hurt more to stay among the ghosts of his past. Here he has been given a home, one where the freezing wind doesn't breach his bedroom at night. He was born to wander, and one day he might leave, but Geralt feels like that day will be the one when he is too old to return. 

"Are you going to make me wait all day?" 

Yennefer pulls him out of his thoughts. She has conjured a carafe of wine and is pouring him a glass. 

"Wouldn't dream of it."

He sits down next to her and is hit by the scent of  _ her _ . She smells sweet and tart all at once; it is a smell that has haunted him all these years, even when he forgot everything else about her, even in Vizima. He wipes the stray thought from his head and takes the offered glass.

She lays back down, the skies of Toussaint reflected and altered in her eyes. He leans over her, places a kiss on the corner of her mouth, tastes the wine. 

"Is this real?" he asks. 

"Which? The wine, this moment? Us?"

"Any of them?" 

She looks at him thoughtfully, a slender hand lingering on his cheek. He has tried to be happy, but he knows he wears his heart on his sleeve. He can never fool anyone who knows him well. 

"Does it matter?" 

"I guess not."

Her hand slips away from him, and in a moment of desperation he grasps it between his own. She's still looking at him, hair like a dark halo around her head. She's never been able to tame her curls. They do as they please, as if they have a mind of their own. Perhaps they do, with how much magic flows through her veins. 

"Did he leave?" she asks, neither soft nor harsh, simply curious. 

"Regis? Yeah."

He swallows down his drink, looking into the distance where the sky kisses the earth. 

"He had to. He'll be hunted by the others if he sticks around."

He looks into the glass in his hands, wine red as blood at the bottom. He doesn't think about the mournful howl he heard as he turned away from Regis and the shape that used to be Detlaff, doesn't think about the final taste of mandrake moonshine he'll likely ever have, the debts he'll never be able to pay. 

"Guilt is a bitter taste that doesn't pair well with wine," Yennefer says calmly. "Can't say I wouldn't have let Syanna face her fate myself. She brought it on herself."

Geralt remembers a young woman, long ago, lying in his arms in the streets of Blaviken, drawing a shuddering last breath before letting go. The shadows the Black Sun casts are long on the tapestry of his life.

"I couldn't."

"You soft little man," she says lightly. "Your big heart will be the death of you."

"I suppose so," he says with a smile. 

A bird sings above them, one of the strange yellow birds that seem to only make their home in Toussaint.

She hums, leaning on her elbow. Her eyes roam his form appreciatively. 

"You look rather ravishing in that, you know?" 

Geralt looks down at himself unconvinced.

He is dressed down in his undershirt, tucked into his pants loosely, chest peaking through the low neckline. 

"I thought you preferred me in black silk doublets?" 

She laughs, a bright sound. She has done that a lot more after leaving court.

"I-" she pulls him down by his sleeve "Prefer you in the nude."

He slots himself in the crook of her neck, her perfume so heavy he can almost taste it.

A moment of silence. Then she whispers in his ear. 

"We don't need the doublets or the heels or the finery anymore."

"I know," he says. "I know."


End file.
